Greedy Lawyers + Immoral Scientist + Hollywood Bimbo=

Junk Science + Hundreds Dead or Maimed.

That is the official conclusion by the British medical journal BMJ.

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.  (Emphasis Mine)

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

(Emphasis Mine)

Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. Efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful Wednesday.

"Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ states.

The now-discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years.

In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

(Emphasis Mine)

"But perhaps as important as the scare's effect on infectious disease is the energy, emotion and money that have been diverted away from efforts to understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who live with it," the BMJ editorial states.

Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted Wakefield's paper last February.

The series of articles launched Wednesday are investigative journalism, not results of a clinical study. The writer, Brian Deer, said Wakefield "chiseled" the data before him, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare."

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.

(Emphasis Mine)

"It's always hard to explain fraud and where it affects people to lie in science," Godlee said. "But it does seem a financial motive was underlying this, both in terms of payments by lawyers and through legal aid grants that he received but also through financial schemes that he hoped would benefit him through diagnostic and other tests for autism and MMR-related issues."

Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, said the reporting "represents Wakefield as a person where the ends justified the means." But he said the latest news may have little effect on those families who still blame vaccines for their children's conditions.

"Unfortunately, his core group of supporters is not going to let the facts dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism," Wiznitzer said. "They need to be open-minded and examine the information as everybody else."

(Emphasis Mine)

Wakefield's defenders include David Kirby, a journalist who has written extensively on autism. He told CNN that Wakefield not only has denied falsifying data, he has said he had no way to do so.

"I have known him for a number of years. He does not strike me as a charlatan or a liar," Kirby said. If the BMJ allegations are true, then Wakefield "did a terrible thing" -- but he added, "I personally find it hard to believe that he did that."

A group of lawyers ambulance chasers track down Andrew Wakefield, offer him $674,000 and he miraculously arrives at the conclusion they want so to sue the vaccine makers aka Big Pharma. I wonder how many scientists they approached with this scheme to DEFRAUD these companies before stumbling upon Wakefield?

Of course David Kirby will defend Wakefield to the hilt. This so-called journalist is more interested in bringing down BIG PHARMA with his writtings at The Huffington Post and more importantly at Evidence of Harm.  A site devoid of all rational scientific thought.  Just like the #1 poster girl for this fraud: Jenny McCarthy.

Bad Medicine Based On Junk Science.

In 1998 Lancet published an article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield which linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.  Today Lancet retracted that article in its entirety.

The medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday retracted a controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.

The study subsequently had been discredited, and last week, the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was found to have acted unethically in conducting the research.

The General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, said that "there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and that his "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible."

The panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children at his son's birthday party to have blood drawn for research purposes, an act that "showed a callous disregard" for the "distress and pain" of the children, the panel said.

After the council's findings last week, The Lancet retracted the study and released this statement.

"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."

The retraction of a previously published paper is practically unheard of. It just isn't done, doesn't happen, and such an uncommon occurrence, that it is the medical equivalent of Hell Freezing Over.

For over a decade Hollywood starlet floozy Jenny McCarthy, has convinced the stupid, the gullible, the lame-brained parents of the world not to vaccinate their children.  And a good percentage of them did so.  So many listened to her that there have been major outbreaks of all three diseases.  So much for bimbos out of Hollywood.

Generation Rescue, an advocacy and support group founded by actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism, expressed support for Wakefield. A co-founder of the group, JB Handley, called him "a courageous honest doctor who told an inconvenient truth." McCarthy is a high-profile proponent of the belief that childhood vaccinations may play a part in the condition.

Generation Rescue criticized the General Medical Council's judgment on Wakefield with this statement: "The sole purpose of the GMC's ruling this week is to try and quell the growing concern of parents that the expanding vaccine schedule and the remarkable rise in autism are correlated."

It also advised parents to do their own research before deciding to give their child the MMR vaccine.

Cases in which U.S. families have sued alleging a vaccine-autism link have had mixed outcomes.

In 2007, a U.S. federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines concluded that a 9-year-old girl's underlying illness had predisposed her to symptoms of autism and was "significantly aggravated" by the vaccinations.

Two years later, three American families sought compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the panel ruled that they had not presented sufficient evidence to prove that the vaccines caused autism in their children.

Why is it that a whore and bimbo like Jenny McCarthy says that vaccines cause autism the people of the world listen, but when  reputable scientists publish studies based on scientific methods and authentic research, they are ignored?

Jenny McCarthy should now get in touch with Dr. Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid, another purveyor of Snake Oil.  Between the 2 of them who knows how many children they can further harm?